“The art of the imagination endures”

Hello friends. Salman Rushdie was recently attacked onstage at a literary symposium and is now slowly recovering. As shocking as that news is, it is a symptom of how unbalanced the world can seem, and sometimes actually is.  In an April 2022 interview, Rushdie pointed out that “the real world has become fantasmagoric. The real world is no longer describable inside terms of naturalistic fiction. It’s become too big, ugly, strange, distorted, weird. Every age in literary history needs to forge the tools with which to describe the reality outside the window. Right now, that reality is so bizarre that it’s not surprising writers have used bizarre means. … The art of the imagination endures. It’s always there. And there’s an enormous hunger to have that art expressed.”

I wish Mr. Rushdie the best in his long road ahead to recovery,  and in his continued efforts to “name the liars,” as he said in his speech to the PEN World Voices gathering in April. Best, Gene.

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